Phillips Island cabins may get new owner

The owner of a marshy spit of land along the Nanticoke River wants to donate it and a pair of buildings to the Boy Scouts of America -- scouts' honor.

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Two of the six cabins illegally built on Phillips Island, a remote 61 acre island on the Nanticoke River. Owner Edwin Lewis built the units close to tidal waters without a permit, violating buffer zone laws.(Photo: Photo courtesy of the Wicomico Planning and Zoning Department)Buy Photo

Story Highlights

A building dispute 15 years in the making is coming to a close in Wicomico County.

Edwin Lewis illegally built six cabins on Phillips Island but is donating them to the Boy Scouts.

Critics worry about breaking up the wild character of the Nanticoke River.

From the "Making the Best of a Bad Situation" department comes the story of six rustic cabins, a retired apparel industry executive and the Boy Scouts of America.

Edwin Lewis, a New Yorker who made millions with Tommy Hilfiger and Polo Ralph Lauren, wants to donate his sportsman's getaway on the Nanticoke River to the Boy Scouts.

After blocking Lewis' every move for the past 14 years, state and local officials have softened their stance to allow the act of charity to move forward.

One longtime foe, the Maryland Critical Area Commission, has agreed to stand down. The commission, which is charged with enforcing the state's 30-year-old Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Act, formally rescinded its opposition in a pact it signed with Lewis and the Boy Scouts in July.

The settlement agreement was conditioned, in part, on the Wicomico County Board of Appeals' granting an after-the-fact variance to allow two of the illegally constructed, almost-finished buildings to continue standing.

The five-member appeals board did just that Thursday, despite concerns about their potential sewage output and a passionate plea to preserve the wild character of that portion of the Nanticoke.

The deal with the Boy Scouts left the cabins' critics in a difficult position, one of those critics conceded Thursday.

"I guess it's pretty hard to be against the Boy Scouts and motherhood because both are pretty nice things," quipped M.P. Minton III, who owns property nearby and has hunted in the area for a half-century.

Still, he added: "I don't think the Boy Scouts should get any preference over Edwin Lewis. ... It seems to me we ought to leave something for Mother Nature and allow generations ahead to go up that river and see nothing."

The hunting cabins sit on Phillips Island, about seven miles south of the Route 50 bridge at Vienna.

An aerial view reveals it to be more of a finger of high ground surrounded by marsh and watery guts. It has no electricity, no roads. The only way on and off is by a shallow-draft boat at high tide.

Along the 10-mile segment of the Nanticoke that includes the Lewis property, the only buildings that can be seen are the cabins and the ruins of a colonial-era house, Minton said. And the house is only visible during the winter.

The controversy began after a passing boater spotted a new pier jutting into the river in 1999. Local officials soon discovered that Lewis had built it without permits, along with six nearly finished cabins.

What's more, the cabins were built within the 100-foot "buffer" required for any development near the bay. That meant they would need a waiver from the Critical Area Commission in addition to local authorities.

"This began a series of court cases, appeals and re-appeals for the last 15 years," Frank McKenzie, a Wicomico planning official, told the Board of Appeals during Thursday's two-hour hearing.

Lewis' legal avenues were all but exhausted after a Wicomico court ordered the buildings demolished in 2009. He began removing the buildings, but a 1,600-square-foot "lodge" building and part of a shed remain standing.

The Del-Mar-Va Council, the local Boy Scouts chapter, would like to use the two buildings to host week-long programs in the summer. About 6-8 boys age 13-15 years old would paddle to the campsite to practice outdoors skills without distraction, said Ray Teat, director of support services for the council.

"The site is gorgeous," he said. "It's remote, with no light pollution from any surrounding neighborhoods."

Lewis, who bought Phillips Island for $283,000 in 1999, would give the property to the Boy Scouts for free.

Judith Stribling, president of the Friends of the Nanticoke River, stopped short of opposing the donation, but she urged the board to outlaw septic tanks on the island. The board agreed to amend the agreement to clarify that it doesn't expressly support a septic tank.

The board will get one more chance to decide the donation's fate in the coming months. It still must weigh in on the campground proposal itself; all campgrounds require a variance in Wicomico, officials say.

2000: The Wicomico Board of Appeals, the county's top building arbiter, denies Lewis' request for an after-the-fact variance to build in the buffer zone.

2003: The Maryland Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, throws out the decision, citing "errors of law" it perceived in the ruling.

2004: The Wicomico appeals board rejects the request a second time. Lewis appeals.

2007: Court of Appeals refuses to hear Lewis' appeal.

2008: Board of Appeals votes against a Lewis plan to replace the cabins with a house.

2009: The circuit court again sides with the Board of Appeals. Lewis begins making plans to raze the buildings.

2014: Lewis signs an agreement with the Boy Scouts of America's Del-Mar-Va Council and the Critical Area Commission to allow him to donate the site. In September, the Board of Appeals allows the deal to move forward.